In an effort to address harmful fishing practices, the new draft of KMFRA has proposed a ban on pair trawling or bull trawling. Destructive fishing practices like use of illegal nets, poison, dynamite, aggregating devices etc have a devastating effect on fish wealth and on the marine environment. Fishing nets that have been abandoned, lost or discarded by fishermen have led to protected fish and marine animals getting entangled in them. Pair trawling or bull trawling is a modified practice in trawling where two or more vessels join together to drag one large trawl net. The Cental Marine Fisheries Research Institute estimates that the efficiency of pair trawling is 3 to 4 times more as compared to conventional trawling, leading to rapid depletion of resources and conflicts with seine fishermen who target pelagic resources. Yet another practice is mini trawling carried out near the shore. The practice leads to substantial destruction of juvenile fish and should be banned for the long-term sustainability of resources. This mainly targets the shrimp resources available in the shallow coastal waters. Fishing based on Fish Aggregating Device (FAD) is in vogue along the coast of Kerala. Scien tific studies by CMFRI have proved that it results in overfishing reducing the spawning stock and significant decrease in catch rates of species like cuttlefish. Earlier, natural materials like coconut spadix were used, but now plastic and discarded net pieces are being used leading to marine littering and ghost fishing. Therefore such practices should be prohibited, scien tists argue. The other major issue is the indiscriminate exploitation of large amount of juvenile fish along with low value biota collec tively called as trash fish. Earlier, this catch which included juvenile and non-edible fish were accidental and fishermen used to discard it. Later, boats found an economic value in trash fish and the catches were transported to fish meal factories in neighbouring states for the production of shrimp feed, cattle feed, poultry feed etc. Now, the demand for juvenile fish from fish meal factories compels the crew to conduct targeted fishing. A minimum legal size (MLS) is seen as a fisheries management tool with the ability to protect juvenile fish, maintain spawning stocks and control the size of fish caught. The new draft recommends declaring minimum legal size for the remaining 44 out of the 58 species of fish. It says that the catch will be treated as a violation if more than 50% of the catch sample is composed of fish of below the prescribed MLS. Inspection would be carried out at sea or in the landing centres using an unsorted sample.
2017 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd